Cyndi Lauper on if She’d Want Chappell Roan to Induct Her At Rock Hall: “She’s Really Great”

Cyndi Lauper has long been considered one of pop music‘s most vocal advocates for women and the LGBTQ community, and amid her upcoming farewell concert tour and recently announced induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, that seems to be the legacy she’s hoping to leave behind.

“I think it’s nice to get awards. It really is. And it’s nice to be recognized after you’ve worked real hard at something. But I also think, ‘what can I do to create change? What can I do to make it better?’” Lauper told Lori Majewski on Sirius XM’s Fierce: Women in Music program. “Not just for me, not even just for my gender but for the people that come afterwards: the planet, the people, the kids. If you look at the young artists, the painters and you look at what they’re doing a lot, some of it’s very apocalyptic, and that’s because they ain’t got hope. And I think the most important thing you can do is give people hope. That’s what I wanna try and do.”

Lauper was announced as an inductee for the Rock Hall’s 2025 class last month alongside Bad Company, The White Stripes and Outkast, among others. Her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour will resume in the U.S. in July and wrap up with two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in August. Lauper’s full interview will air on SiriusXM on May 22. Several clips from the conversation are below, courtesy of SiriusXM.

Elsewhere in the interview, Lauper commended Chappell Roan, who several critics have likened to Lauper as Roan has made her ascent to pop superstardom over the past year. Majewski suggested Roan should induct Lauper into the Rock Hall, though Lauper herself didn’t directly address that.

“I think she’s really great. There’s a lot of great young artists, I think she’s really great,” Lauper said. And when she had the long red hair, I was laughing because I wore a very long red wig when I did the Berlin Wall. And then I did again when I did a tour, I had very long red wig. I was laughing because I saw her on the horse with the long red wig. I was like, ‘That’s really good. I like it myself.”

Majewski herself called Roan “a modern day Cyndi Lauper” and a “direct descendent” to the icon, both because of the music as well as Roan’s advocacy for the LGBTQ community. “She is LGBTQ, and for me, I’m friend and family [to the community],” Lauper said.  I don’t think you should ever stand by and allow that kind of discrimination and prejudice against a community ever.”

Lauper then recalled German pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous “First They Came” poem about WWII and the Holocaust, and speaking out over injustices toward groups other than your own. “It’s really important that people remember [the poem’s message] when they say, ‘never forget.’ It seems like everybody did,” she said. “You gotta share your story so that people understand that we are a community of human beings. And human beings, we’re all different. And thank God we’re all different. Because if everybody was the same, there’d be no new ideas. There’d be no food recipes that are new. There’d be nothing, no color. There’d be nothing.”

When asked about the “girls just want to have fundamental rights” shirts Lauper’s fund of the same name sells to raise money for women’s health and rights, Lauper recalled being brought to tears seeing younger women holding up signs with the same message at protests and women’s marches in recent years. She confirmed it’s what inspired her to launch the fund back in 2022.

“When I was talking about women rights in the ’80s, everybody was like, ‘What are you talking about? Why can’t you just shut up and sing?’ I was like, “Yeah, when I get that lobotomy, I could,’” Lauper said. “I felt that the most important thing when I saw those signs … I cried because I went through so much. But there were actually young women that actually heard me.”

After seeing the signs at rallies, she contacted those who helped her launch True Colors United — an organization aimed at combating homelessness for LGBT youth — and enlisted their help to start the new fund too. At the end of April, Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Rights announced a $150,000 donation gifted across eight organizations around the world.

“I thought was really important to be able to help in these times and acknowledge those young women. They heard me. Well, I heard you too,” she said. “And I’m gonna help too. I can’t just stand by and not do anything.”